The following list of Wigton Vestry Members, 1788, 1822-1834 is drawn from the vestry minutes. The year 1828 is not included. In most years the occupation or status of the person was also recorded. Where possible these have been checked against entries in trade directories. Some occupations not included in the minutes have been taken from the directories.

Sources

Cumbria Archives, Carlisle, PR/36/119, Wigton Vestry Minute Book, 1735-1885

Francis Jollie, Cumberland Guide and Directory (Carlisle: 1811)

E. M. Parson and E. W. White, History, Directory and Gazetteer of the counties of Cumberland and Westmorland (1829)

Pigot and Co., National Commercial Directory [Part 1: Cheshire – Northumberland] for 1828–29 (London and Manchester: J. Pigot and Co., 1828)

This is a work in progress, subject to change as new research is conducted.

Thomas Wilson appears in two overseers’ vouchers, both relating to Wigton. See ‘Thomas Wilson JP Over-Rules Overseer Isaac Lightfoot of Wigton, Re: Joseph Blackburn, 1773’ (28 Aug 2018) and ‘Thomas Wilson Overrules the Overseers of Wigton Again: Jane McCall, 1776’ (20 Sept.2018)

According to his memorial in Carlisle Cathedral, Thomas Wilson was prebendary for 21 years and dean of the cathedral for 14 years from 1764. He died on 25 September 1778, aged 63.

Wilson attended Giggleswick School and Christ’s College, Cambridge. He was ordained in 1742 and became vicar of Torpenhow in 1743. The following year he married Margaret Morley, the younger daughter of John Morley of Beamsley Hall. She died 2 February 1780, aged 62.

Thomas and Margaret had two sons, the elder, also called Thomas (1748–1812), also took holy orders and became vicar of Corbridge (1773–1784) and, from 1785 until his death, rector of Distington. He also served as vicar of Brigham (1797–1812).

Wilson was a witness to the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 when Prince Charles Edward Stuart returned from exile and launched his bid to take the English throne. After taking Edinburgh, his forces defeated George II’s army (commanded by Sir John Cope) at Prestonpans, and marched into England. The garrison at Carlisle Castle surrendered to Charles’ army. When the prince’s army marched southwards, around 100 Jacobites remained in Carlisle. The Jacobite army reached Derby before retreating. They returned to Carlisle where around 400 faced a siege led by the Duke of Cumberland. In the face of the siege they surrendered, and many were subsequently executed.

During this time Wilson wrote a number of letters in which he commented on what was happening. In one dated 9 January 1745/46 he wrote:

The conduct of this place has been strangely misrepresented, and the people now in it are not looked upon as faithful and good subjects. I’m persuaded when truth comes out and circumstances are fairly stated, Carlisle will be pitied, and allowed to suffer on all hands. A demand made … in the Duke’s name, of the bells of our Cathedral … was a surprise upon the members of the Chapter here.

In a letter dated 20 January 1745/46 he continued on the subject of the cathedral and the bells: ‘

It was a scandalous, unprecedented, and illegal demand … Things are settling here, and I hope in a little time we shall be better thought of, and better treated … It will be sometime yet before it be safe to have service again in the Cathedral. Proper methods I’m assur’d will be taken to have it purifyed’.

A week later he wrote:

No further demand has been of our Bells … You may imagine better than I can describe the condition the Rebs. left the Parish Church in, for yt was their prison: I was given to understand the damage it suffered wd. be made good, but upon enquiry no further power was given than to the cleaning and washing of it. This proves of little use, for the flags being old, spungy and ill-laid, the earth under then is corrupted; and till that is removed the Cathedral Church will not be sweet, nor will it be safe to have a service in it.

Sources

Cumbria Archives Service, PR 36/V/3/9, Wigton Quarter, Overseers’ Vouchers, Jos Blackburn’s order, 29 April 1773

PR 36/V/6/83, Wigton Quarter, Overseers’ Vouchers, Jane McCall’s Order, 1776

Gentleman’s. Magazine, 1778, xlviii , p.4

R. C. Hudleston and R. S. Boumphrey, Cumberland Families and Heraldry (1977)

George Gill Mounsey, Carlisle in 1745: Authentic Account of the Occupation of Carlisle in 1745 (London: Longman, 1846).

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/fasti-ecclesiae/1541-1847/vol11/pp14-18 accessed 29 October 2018

http://www.tulliehouse.co.uk/collections/carlisle-and-1745-jacobite-rebellion accessed 29 October 2018

This is a work in progress, subject to change as new research is conducted.

Researched and written by Margaret Dean.

In 1833-34 John Tordiff’s name appears on a Church Warden’s bill for the Parish of Wigton for the supply of wine at a cost of £1.10.0. The bill was settled by Henry Hoodless, Stationer, Wigton. On the reverse side of Tordiff’s bill is a second bill for registers from Mr Hoodless for £5.10.0. It is from this side of the bill that the date is assumed.

The surname Tordiff is quite common in the Wigton, Holme Cultrum, and West Cumberland area, therefore, John Tordiff’s movements prior to this bill and business as Spirit Merchant in Market Street, Wigton, cannot currently be discerned with certainty.

On 29 August 1833 Tordiff married Mary Russell (b. 20 May 1808) in Whitehaven. Her father, John Russell, worked as a maltster. Shortly after the marriage Tordiff took over the grocery premises of John Meals in the Market Place, Wigton. John Meals’ name also appears on the same bill for the supply of wine (and on sveral other vouchers). Meals eventually retired to Cockermouth with his wife Mary (née Brown). In the 1851 Census the Meals were living in Castle Street. Meals died in 1857. Prior to this, Meals had placed a notice in the newspaper stating that he had relinquished his business and informing the public that John Tordiff had taken over his stock. In the practice of the time, Meals hoped that the public would favour Tordiff with its business.

In the Carlisle Journal there is further evidence of Tordiff in Wigton; an advert for the sale of a freehold estate at Hayton. The property was being sold at the Sun Inn, the house of John Cloag, innkeeper, Aspatria on 31 July 1834: ‘Particulars may be known on application to John Tordiff of Wigton Spirit Marchant’. Tordiff had also been acting as umpire in a horse race involving a wager between John Kidd, a Mr Pattinson, Mr William Buttery (erstwhile assistant overseer of Wigton) and a Mr Simpson.

By August 1834 John and Mary Tordiff had a son, John Russell Tordiff and all appeared to be going well. By December 1836, however, Tordiff’s fortunes were changing. His business ceased trading. In effect he has been declared bankrupt and those appointed to settle his estate were charged with the task of calling in the money owed to him so that they can pay his creditors. In February 1837 a dividend of 10s was paid out to creditors by the assignees at John Hewson’s office. Tordiff’s business was taken over by Daniel Harrison.

After this episode, John and Mary Tordiff went to Liverpool, where a daughter Hannah Elizabeth was born in 1838. There is no information as to his circumstances or if he was in business. He would only have been allowed to start a new business, however, once a certificate of discharge from his bankruptcy had been declared. All did not go well.

On May 5 1839 an inquest was held at The Grapes, Church Row, Aldgate London on John Tordiff, aged 35. The suggestion is that he may have taken his own life as two phials of laudanum (a preparation of alcohol containing the opium derivative morphine), were found with his body. He had been living for a month at the Three Colts, Old Ford, and was employed by Messrs Chapman, distillers. It is here that Tordiff’s wife had sold some stock from the funds at a disadvantage. A nurse who gave evidence said Tordiff had been in the London Hospital and had told her he had taken laudanum before. Bell’s Weekly Messenger reported his death as a ‘Determined case of poisoning of a decayed merchant’, stating that he had formally been in a very extensive way of business. Examination of his body showed he had led a dissipated life.  It would seem that John Tordiff died by his own hand either by accident or on purpose. He was buried at St Botolph Without, Aldgate, London May 1839.

John Tordiff’s wife Mary, aged 30, went to Aspatria with their children John Russell and Hannah Elizabeth aged six and two respectively. She took up work as a schoolmistress. On 26 July 1845 she married spirit dealer Robert Graham (b.1821 in Distington, Cumberland) and had two further children: Mary Jane (b.1847) and Dorothy (b.1851). They can be found at Scotland Road, Liverpool, on the 1851 Census along with her and John Tordiff’s children John and Hannah. In 1861 Mary was widowed again but carried on Graham’s business as a victualler.

Death notices in Gore’s Liverpool General Advertiser 4 April 1867 and the Liverpool Mercury 2 April 1857 reported the death of an Elizabeth Tordiff age 81 at 36 Lodge Lane. For 40 years she had been the landlady of the Rams Head, Workington and latterly nurse at the Deaf and Dumb Institute, Oxford Street, Liverpool. According to the 1841 Census Elizabeth was living in Toxteth, Liverpool, and then at the above Institute in 1861 as a widow and Sick Nurse. It is possible that this is John Tordiff’s mother.

Hannah Elizabeth Tordiff (1838–1906) married William Wilson (a pilot mariner then dock worker) in Liverpool on 7 December 1861 and had five children: Alex Poole, Dorah, William R., Harold W. and Isabella.

John Russell Tordiff (1834–1871) was in business with a Benjamin Lambert prior to the dissolution of the business in1868. He also was a book keeper dealing with accounts, and lived with his sister’s family prior to his death on 9 May 1871. His death announcement in the Carlisle Patriot 19 May 1871 states he is the son of John Tordiff late Spirit Merchant of Wigton.

Sources

Cumbria Archives, PR36/V/21/4, Wigton Overseers’ Vouchers, 1833–34

Ancestry.co.uk, England Select Marriages 1538–1973

britishnewspaperarchivesonline.co.uk

Bell’s Weekly Messenger, 5 May 1839

Carlisle Patriot, 23 November 1833, 16 April 1836, 28 March 1857, 19 May 1871

Carlisle Journal, 14 June 1834, 5 July 1834, 18 July 1834, 31 December 1836, 4 March 1837

The Chartist, 5 May 1839

Gore’s Liverpool General Advertiser, 4 April 1867

Liverpool Mail 7, December 1861

Liverpool Mercury, 2 April 1867

Liverpool Daily Post, 13 May 1871

This is a work in progress, subject to change as new research is conducted.

Whereas Joseph Blackburn of Wigton in the parish of Wigton

in the county of Cumberland hath made with oath before me

Thomas Wilson Dr in Divinity one of his majesty’s Justices

of the Peace and for the said county that he the said

Joseph Blackburn is poor and not able to provide for himself

and family and that he did on Sunday last the 25^th of April 1773

apply for Relief to Mr Isaac Lightfoot Overseer of Wigton

in the said Parish of Wigton and was by him refused

to be relieved & whereas the said Isaac Lightfoot hath

appeared before me but he hath not shewed any sufficient

Cause why the said Joseph Blackburn should not be relieved

I do therefore hereby order the said Isaac Lightfoot Overseer

of the Poor of Wigton in the Parish of Wigton aforesaid to pay

unto the said Joseph Blackburn immediately upon producing

this Order the Sum of five shillings and afterwards

weekly and every week the sum of four shillings

for and towards the Support and maintenance of

himself and family until such time as he shall be

otherwise ordered according to Law to forbear the

said allowance. Given under my Hand and Seal

at Carlisle in the said County the twenty-ninth Day of

April one thousand seven hundred and seventy three

Tho Wilson

The handwritten order above, dated 29 April 1773, from Thomas Wilson, Justice of the Peace and Dean of Carlisle Cathedral, has raised a number of questions about the relationship between Wilson and Isaac Lightfoot, the Overseer of Wigton. On the face of it, it seems very straightforward. Pauper Joseph Blackburn had applied to Lightfoot requesting assistance for himself and his family. Lightfoot refused. Blackburn appealed the decision by applying to Wilson. This was part and parcel of the Poor Law process. If they were not satisfied with the decision made by an overseer, claimants could go to the quarter sessions and ask the magistrates to review it.  As happened in this case, magistrates could overrule an overseer’s decision and stipulate what provision should be made for the claimant.

This is a handwritten order, but what is interesting is that there are two different colours of ink used. Most of it is in black including the statement that Lightfoot had appeared before Wilson but had failed to show sufficient cause to explain his refusal to assist Blackburn. Blackburn’s name, the date and the amount to be paid over, however, are all written in a sepia colour. This raises the possibility that this was not an isolated incident. The use of what looks like a standard response pre-prepared by Wilson or a clerk acting on his behalf leaving gaps to be filled in later, suggests that Wilson was in the habit of over-ruling Lightfoot’s decisions. One of our volunteers wondered how many cases were referred during Lightfoot’s tenure as overseer, before adding, ‘By refusing support he would look to be on the side of the rate payers, and when ordered to pay up by the Quarter Sessions he was not seen to be responsible for the expenditure!’ Perhaps a trawl through the quarter sessions may offer an answer. Equally, are there any other instances of this occurring in other parishes in Cumberland, East Sussex or Staffordshire?

Sources

Cumbria Archives, Carlisle, PR36/V/3/9, Wigton Quarter, Overseers’ Vouchers, Jos Blackburn’s order

Edgar Miller, ‘English pauper lunatics in the era of the old poor law’, History of Psychiatry 23(3) 2012, 321.